Political homes

When Rep. Duncan Hunter finishes a work day on Capitol Hill, he doesn’t retreat to a condominium or a house in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, like many of his congressional colleagues.

Instead, the 52nd District representative heads back to his office in The Cannon House Office Building, pulls out an inflatable camping pad, and sleeps. He showers after working out at a local gym.

When the workweek ends, he is on the first flight back to San Diego, where he lives in a four-bedroom home in Alpine.

“I don’t live in D.C.,” said Hunter, a former Marine who continues to serve as a captain in the Marine Corps Reserve.

He equated his living situation in D.C. to that when he was stationed in Iraq or 29 Palms. “I work in D.C. I work until I go to sleep, and then I sleep a bit and wake up. It’s like in Iraq. Where I sleep is incidental.”

Hunter says he’s not doing it to make a statement, though a number of his congressional colleagues have turned to dorming in their offices as a show of solidarity with their recession-racked constituents.

Louis Russo, 60, is a member of the Alpine Community Planning Group and a former Marine. He thinks Hunter’s accommodations are commendable, and sees them as a byproduct of his Marine Corps training.

“One of the things in the Marine Corps, as an officer, you set the example, and if you are going to ask other people to do something, then it is expected as an officer you do it first,” said Russo, who is a Republican. “That may be very well much of what he is doing, showing that he knows that his constituents have it rough, so he’s not going to do anything that his constituents couldn’t afford to do.”

Count Barry Jantz, the CEO of the Grossmont Healthcare District, as another constituent that supports Hunter's actions.

"I've known representatives that rarely visited their districts or there were questions if they lived there at all," Jantz said. "It probably shows his commitment to his district and his constituents and that is a good thing."

An estimated 15 percent of Congress members use their offices as their D.C. domiciles. Hunter has been doing it since he was first elected in 2008. He says that it allows him to be flexible and spend more time in his district.

“The reality is that my constituents want me back as often as possible,” Hunter said. “So, I gotta be in SD, talking to people seeing what their concerns are and what are their fixes.”

The practice of “congressional sleepovers” isn’t new. It waxes and wanes with changes in partisan control on Capitol Hill, typically peaking when Republicans control the House. During the 1980s, Democrats urged lawmakers to stop bedding down in their offices. It picked up again in the mid-90s, when Republicans took control of the House for the first time in four decades.

After a lull earlier this decade, the number of office sleepers peaked again in 2010, when voters elected a wave of Tea Party candidates who bed down in their offices to show their separation from the Washington establishment.

There are no laws against members of Congress using their offices as living quarters, said officials with the Architect of the Capitol, which oversees the activities on the Capitol campus. Over time though, the practice has gained supporters and detractors.

In Michigan, Rep. Pete Hoekstra’s district office-sleeping was so popular that many constituents expect his successor, Republican Bill Huizenga, to do the same, Huizenga’s office said.

At least one congressional watchdog group says that lawmakers who sleep in their offices are turning House office buildings into frat houses.

“You wouldn’t see that type of behavior at IBM, would you?” said Melanie Sloan, the executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It’s totally unprofessional.”

According to CREW, The IRS treats lodging as a taxable fringe benefit unless it is offered on the employer’s business premises, is for the employer’s convenience, and is required as a condition of employment.

Sloan noted the utility costs for taxpayers, and she said some members of Congress and their staffers already report the value of their free parking spaces as taxable income.

“If you’re paying taxes to lodge your car, how can you not pay taxes for your lodging?” Sloan said this week.

The group in 2011 asked the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate the 40 Congress members who slept in their offices. The idea was, by taking free lodging, they might be violating House rules that bar use of taxpayer resources for anything other than the performance of their official duties. Ethics Office records don’t indicate an investigation was launched.

Stanley Brand, the former House General Counsel during the 1980s when bedding down was frowned upon, called office sleeping tacky and unprofessional, but not an extra burden on taxpayers.

“Congress members are entitled to an office,” Brand said. “The fact they convert it into a sleeping space while they are in DC doesn’t add any additional burden on taxpayers.”

Hunter does not see himself changing his living situation any time soon. He does, however, regret one thing about it.

“The hardest part of the job is not having my family there when I am there,” said Hunter, who initially declined to discuss where he sleeps. “But we’ve had some good military training, so the family is used to me being gone for ... periods of time.”

The Watchdog learned about Hunter’s D.C. accommodations during a review of residency for the county’s five congressional delegates. The exercise began after voters booted longtime Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar out of office in May, partly due to revelations during the election that Lugar no longer lived in Indiana.

In order to determine residential status, The Watchdog checked public records, contacted each representatives’ office with a brief questionnaire and visited neighborhoods to get a sense of community roots.

The Watchdog also reviewed living accommodations in D.C. and found that four of the five members — with the exception of Hunter — own a home or condominium that is more valuable than their home in the district.